Niagara

NIAGARA (1953) - Mar. 24, 2009
A well made film noir about a woman who conspires to kill her husband, and how that unravels. This was a bit odd for the genre in that it was shot in colour, but it was still definitely a film noir through and through, both in the plot, and in the dark, shadowy cinematography (though much of the film took place in daylight, it was still dark when it needed to be). The film was well acted (Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe were quite good) and well directed (I particularly liked the sequence in which Cotten confronts Monroe in the bell tower). The main problem is the other two characters -- a young couple on their honeymoon who are almost entirely superfluous. The film would have been much better if it had just focused on Monroe and Cotten. **1/2